- British law enforcement raided a Russian oligarch's mansion and seized £30,000 ($37,700) in cash, The Daily Telegraph reported.
- The EU and UK have sanctioned the oligarch, Petr Aven, who's worth an estimated $5.3 billion.
- British authorities are investigating possible sanctions violations by Aven, The Telegraph said.
British authorities raided sanctioned Russian oligarch Petr Aven's mansion and seized around £30,000 ($37,700) in cash, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Several dozen officers from the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) searched Aven's property in Surrey, southern England, The Telegraph said, citing sources with knowledge of the operation.
Authorities are thought to be examining a transfer of money to a company that manages Aven's mansion, The Telegraph said. Sanctioned individuals in the UK require licenses to spend money.
The Telegraph said there was no suggestion Aven was in possession of the cash at the time of the search, which happened recently.
Aven previously told the Financial Times that his wife had visited cash machines in London to withdraw as much money as she could before his assets were frozen, and that he didn't know "how to survive" being sanctioned. Aven also told The FT that sanctions on Russian oligarchs were "understandable" but "not fair."
The West imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia and many of its oligarchs after the country invaded Ukraine in late February. Both the EU and the UK have sanctioned Aven, cofounder of LetterOne and former president of Alfa-Bank, whose net worth Bloomberg puts at around $5.3 billion.
An NCA spokesperson said: "The NCA does not routinely confirm or deny the existence of investigations, including those who may or may not be the subject of them."
Aven declined to comment to The Telegraph and Alfa-Bank didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on his behalf.
The EU has said that Aven, who formerly served as Russia's minister of foreign economic relations, is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's "closest oligarchs" and they regularly meet at the Kremlin.
The UK has frozen Aven's assets, thereby preventing UK businesses from dealing with his funds and barring his access to economic resources.
Aven and his business partner Mikhail Fridman both resigned from Moscow-based Alfa-Bank's board of directors the day after they were sanctioned. They also both left the board of LetterOne, the London-based investment firm they co-founded, and Aven said that its staff had since been "afraid" to meet with him personally.
Aven and Fridman both told Reuters in March that they would "contest the spurious and unfounded basis for the imposition of these sanctions."